TROUBLE-PROOF[1]
BY EDWIN L. SABIN
Never rains where Jim is—
People kickin', whinin';
He goes round insistin',—
"Sun is almost shinin'!"
Never's hot where Jim is—
When the town is sweatin';
He jes' sets and answers,—
"Well, I ain't a-frettin'!"
Never's cold where Jim is—
None of us misdoubt it,
Seein' we're nigh frozen!
He "ain't thought about it"!
Things that rile up others
Never seem to strike him!
"Trouble-proof," I call it,—
Wisht that I was like him!
JOHNNY'S PA
BY WILBUR D. NESBIT
My pa—he always went to school,
He says, an' studied hard.
W'y, when he's just as big as me
He knew things by the yard!
Arithmetic? He knew it all
From dividend to sum;
But when he tells me how it was,
My grandma, she says "Hum!"
My pa—he always got the prize
For never bein' late;
An' when they studied joggerfy
He knew 'bout every state.
He says he knew the rivers, an'
Knew all their outs an' ins;
But when he tells me all o' that,
My grandma, she just grins.
My pa, he never missed a day
A-goin' to the school,
An' never played no hookey, nor
Forgot the teacher's rule;
An' every class he's ever in,
The rest he always led.
My grandma, when pa talks that way,
Just laughs an' shakes her head.
My grandma says 'at boys is boys,
The same as pas is pas,
An' when I ast her what she means
She says it is "because."
She says 'at little boys is best
When they grows up to men,
Because they know how good they was,
An' tell their children, then!